THE tiny sailboat in which my mortal enemy, Taliboz, was carrying off the Princess Loralie, was making steadily northeast toward Olba with our six battleships in hot pursuit, when suddenly I saw her come about and head directly south.
Gadrimel, Admiral Rogvoz and I were watching together on the forward deck of the flagship. The admiral stared for a minute through his long glass. Then he carefully scanned the horizon toward the northeast.
“They have good reasons for turning,” he announced excitedly. “A great ordzook approaches from the north!”
He passed the glass to Gadrimel, who looked for a moment, then with an exclamation of horror, passed it on to me.
When I had adjusted the glass to suit my vision, I saw a most fearsome sight. Not more than a half mile behind the small sailboat, and gaining on it rapidly, a gigantic and terrible head projected from the water, swinging on a thick arched neck. The head alone was half as long as the sailboat it pursued; and although the body was submerged, I could see, at intervals of fifteen to twenty feet, sharp spines flashing intermittently above the waves to a distance of fully a hundred feet behind the head.
“Do you think we can save them, Rogvoz?” asked Gadrimel.
“We can but try, Highness,” replied the admiral. “It is doubtful.” He turned to the captain of the boat. “Order the mattork crews to start firing on the ordzook, and signal all other captains to do likewise.”
The captain shouted his orders to the waiting cannon crews, and a moment later the din of these rapid-fire weapons was terrific. From the high forward deck our signal man meanwhile busied himself semaphoring with two huge disks, one red the other yellow. The other ships immediately opened fire with their mattorks, adding to the deafening noise which our own ship had started.
We were approaching closer to the marine monster now, as the path of the fishing boat crossed our own. I could see the ordzook turn from time to time, snapping at the stinging mattork projectiles as they struck the spiny ridges of its undulating scaly body, which was a shimmering, bluish-green in color. The head and neck were a brilliant shade of yellow, except where neck and shoulders joined, for at this point a broad band of scarlet formed a flaming ring—a danger signal which all creatures might beware.
The speed of the mighty amphibian was impeded by its constant turning to snap at its wounds, enabling the small boat containing Taliboz and Loralie to gain on it gradually.
Suddenly changing its course, the monster wheeled and swam toward our fleet. “To the right!” called Rogvoz. “Veer to the right!”
The ship on which we stood came about suddenly, her starboard rail for a moment submerged beneath the waves. All hands grabbed for such fixed objects as they could cling to.
Behind us trailed the fleet, and on came the ordzook, not stopping now to snap futilely at the stinging projectiles, but bent on more deadly action.
With all the port mattorks trained on the monster, I thought to see it go into a death struggle at any moment, but the projectiles seemed merely to irritate it. We were so close in a few moments that I could see its relatively tiny jet black eyes, set just above the corners of the great gaping mouth which was filled with a formidable array of saw-edged teeth.
We passed it safely, as did the second, third, fourth and fifth boats, but the last of the fleet, lagging behind because of improper manipulation of its sails, could not escape.
The enormous yellow head reared upward for an instant on the arched, spiny neck. Then, with formidable jaws distended, it struck downward at the fore deck. The captain of the ship and three of his men standing with him disappeared into the huge maw along with most of the deck on which they stood.
Again and again the creature struck at the doomed craft, until sails, masts, men, and most of the upper works were gone. Then it reared upward in the water and came down with a tremendous crash on the middle of the defenseless hulk. Broken in two by the terrific impact, both halves of the ship sank almost instantly, and the fearful creature which had wrought this destruction before our eyes plunged into the waves after them. Nor did we see it more.
Once more we turned our attention to the boat containing Taliboz and the princess. Hemmed off from Olba by our five vessels, they were now sailing due south at a speed apparently equaling our own, for as time passed the distance between us did not seem appreciably to alter.
Because of the presence of Princess Loralie on board the fishing boat we were constrained to withhold our mattork fire, with which otherwise we could soon have brought Taliboz to terms. He fired no shots, either, except a few stray projectiles from the torks, which led us to believe that he had not salvaged any mattorks from his wrecked airship.
As we sailed southward over the blue-gray waters of the Ropok Ocean, the point of land on which the city of Adonijar is situated receded from view, and in all directions showed only a cloud-lined sky meeting and almost blending with the rolling waters.
But even this vast expanse of sky and sea was not a lonely place. It teemed with life of a thousand varieties—with creatures of striking beauty and of the most terrifying ugliness. Quite near our boat several large white birds with red-tipped wings and long, sharply curved beaks skimmed the water in search of food. Mighty flying reptiles, some with wingspreads of more than sixty feet, soared high in the air, scanning the water until they saw such prey as suited them; then, folding their webbed wings, they plunged with terrific speed, to emerge with struggling prey and leisurely flap away.
With the advent of sudden darkness, common to tropical and semi-tropical Zarovia, bright searchlights flashed out from the mast-heads of the entire fleet, and the boat we pursued was thus kept in sight.
While these lights were an absolute necessity in the blackness of the moonless Zarovian night, they were also a nuisance, as they attracted to the vessel countless droves of flying creatures, mostly reptilian; many of them, blinded by the bright beams, flew against masts, sails or rigging and fell, squawking, croaking or hissing to the deck. Some of them, infuriated and only partly crippled or stunned, menaced our lives until dispatched and tossed overboard.
After several hours I grew weary and retired for the night. Despite the constantly repeated disturbances above deck and the frequent colliding of the craft with some marine monster, I soon fell asleep.
I was awakened late the following morning by Prince Gadrimel’s valet, who insisted on ministering to my wants as became a prince of the blood imperial. After a breakfast of stewed mushrooms and succulent grilled fish, washed down with a bowl of steaming kova, I went on deck where I found Gadrimel and Rogvoz in consultation.
“They swing gradually but surely toward the southwest, Highness,” said Rogvoz as I came up. “They are trying to circle us and sail once more toward Olba.”
“Is there no way we can prevent their doing this?” asked Gadrimel.
“We can only follow them so that their circle must be so large that they will be cornered by land.”
I took up the glass which he had put down in order to make some calculations, and focused it on the ship we were pursuing. On the rear deck I made out the slim figure of the princess, who also held a telescope in her hand. She raised it a moment later, and I saw that it was pointed at our ship. I waved my left arm.
Her reply was instantaneous, as her shapely white arm flashed above her head. Then I saw Taliboz, glowering with rage, come up behind her, wrench the glass from her grasp and with significant gestures order her forward. With little head held high, she defied him, but he grasped her wrist and dragged her away. As she disappeared from view, I lowered my glass, and Gadrimel, who had evidently been watching me, said, “Beard of Thorth, Prince Zinlo! Your usually serene and smiling countenance has suddenly become as stormy and forbidding as the Azpok at change of seasons. What have you seen?”
“Enough,” I replied, “to make me long for the day when I can once more meet Taliboz face-to-face, scarbo in hand!”
For five days we followed in tormenting nearness, sometimes close enough to be within hailing distance, sometimes so far back that we feared to lose them. It was late on the fifth day that a lookout at the masthead above us suddenly shouted: “Land! Land!”
Instantly Gadrimel, Rogvoz and I rushed to the foredeck. Taliboz, now hemmed in from all sides by our fleet, was doing the only thing left for him to do, steering directly for a sheltered inlet. He rounded a curve in the shore line, disappearing from view, and some time later, when we sailed into the inlet, we saw his craft beached.
Rogvoz, who had the glass, exclaimed, “The fool! The utter fool! To escape us he plunges into worse danger, dragging the princess with him. We, at least, would not eat him.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Gadrimel.
“Just now I saw the entire party disappear into the fern forest.”
“But this danger you mention. What is it?”
“I had forgotten, Highness, that you are unfamiliar with this part of Zarovia. This is the land of the terrible, flesh-eating cave-apes—huge creatures, any one of which is said to be a match for a dozen men, but with intelligence far greater than that of other apes. Some of the few men who have landed here and had the good fortune to escape them say they not only have a peculiar clucking language of their own but can also speak patoa.”
“We must catch up to them quickly,” I cried.
The five ships were brought up as close to the sloping, sandy beach as was safe, then boats were lowered. Soon a force of five hundred fighting men stood on shore.
After a short consultation, it was decided that we should form a long line, the men keeping about ten feet apart, and so enter the forest in the direction which Taliboz had taken. This line, if kept unbroken, would form a great net nearly a mile across in which the fugitives, we felt sure, must inevitably be snared. Rogvoz took charge of the extreme left end of the line, Gadrimel directed the center, and I had charge of the extreme right end.
Tripping over clinging creepers, floundering through sticky morasses, cutting our way through matted, tangled ropelike vines which hung downward from the mighty branches of the tree-ferns, and constantly slapping at the biting and stinging insect pests which abounded in these lowlands, we soon found ourselves progressing with exasperating slowness.
Not only did the vegetable and insect world seek to detain us, there was the menace of animals and reptiles as well. A giant whistling serpent—a hideous creature fully forty feet in length, with long, upright ears and sharp spines the full length of its back—struck down one of our men and succeeded in killing two others before it was finally dispatched by the bullets from a score of torks.
Soon the men had banded in groups of about twenty each for mutual protection.
The group nearest us lost three men to a ramph, a great hairless bearlike creature, whose scaly hide was a brilliant chlorophyl green above, fading to a greenish yellow below. After they had slain it they fell to with their scarbos, cutting it up and bearing portions of the meat with them, for ramph steaks were considered the most delicious meat on Zarovia.
Some time near noon, my party was attacked by a marmelot, a vicious feline fully as large as a terrestrial draft horse, its hairless, scaly hide a mottled orange and black, its great saber tusks fully a foot in length. Seven of our men were slain by this, one of the fiercest of the Zarovian jungle creatures, before it was dispatched.
Brave men were these soldiers of Adonijar; in spite of the sudden death which hovered over us in these tangled jungles, they cut their way forward without grumbling or word of turning back.
Because they had stopped to cut up the ramph they had slain, we had lost sight of the party next to us, and it was not until darkness suddenly descended that I thought to communicate with them. I called out to them then to halt, but received no reply. Again I called at the top of my voice, but there was no answer.
“Remain here,” I told my men, “and I will go and find them. They cannot be far away.”
Glad for a rest after their arduous march, the group quickly cleared a place for a fire, and got out their kova and provisions to prepare their evening meal.
I then set out in the direction which I felt sure would lead me to the next group of warriors, flashing my light ahead of me. I must have traveled for at least two miles, shouting from time to time without receiving any reply, when suddenly I heard a quavering, mournful howl from the darkness at my right.
Swinging my light around in the direction of the noise, I saw three huge, slinking forms and three pairs of blazing eyes. They slightly resembled terrestrial wolves, but were fully twice as large as any wolves that ever lived on Earth. Their scaly hides were slate gray in color, and each had a ruff of long, sharp spines which stood out around the neck like a spiked collar. Upon describing them later, I learned that they were awoos—so called, no doubt, because of their doleful, nerve-racking cries.
Swinging my tork into line, I instantly brought down the foremost beast, whereupon the others crouched, disappearing from view. Howl after howl resounded from all directions. They began to close in on me.
I whirled this way and that, and where the light was caught by the glowing eyes of the wary creatures, my tork spat death, but I soon saw that it was a hopeless fight. It seemed that as soon as I killed or wounded one creature, two more stepped in to take its place.
There was nothing left for me to do but to climb into the branches above me, hoping they would be unable to follow. Accordingly I swarmed up one of the trailing, rope-like vines which hung from the mighty fronds of a tree-fern fully sixty feet above my head, and soon found myself in a huge leaf crown which afforded a temporary resting place.
The howling chorus below was terrible to hear. The pack, now more than a hundred in number, milled about the base of the tree while the more impatient of the creatures leaped up, snapping and snarling. Time and again I used my tork, littering the ground with their carcasses, but the dead brutes were instantly replaced by others.
Wondering how long this sort of thing would last, I was slipping a fresh clip of gas and one of projectiles into my weapon when I heard a rustle of the leaves above me. Glancing upward, I beheld a huge gorilla-like face surmounting a mighty chest fully three feet across. Then a great hairy hand descended on my head with terrific force, and I lost consciousness.